


Priorities

by bcbdrums



Category: Kim Possible (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23804842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bcbdrums/pseuds/bcbdrums
Summary: In a flash Drakken saw the dog run across the street, barking all the while. The sound of Shego's glow firing repeatedly echoed amid the cries of a woman calling for the dog and the neighbor trying to talk down the gun-wielding man. He heard a trash can clatter to the ground and roll several feet. And then the gun went off.
Kudos: 6





	Priorities

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: A "what happened next" for the episode "Emotion Sickness." Prompt fill from Tumblr. Thank you GothicThundra for the title!
> 
> My inspiration was just the closing shot of Drakken and Shego, clearly running toward a suburb. Please review!

_'Run, run, run!'_

Drakken sprinted at the absolute limit his short legs would allow, muscles straining as sweat began to dampen the inside of his clothes. The heat building within him from his exertion and the restrictive attire made it all the worse, and he knew he would collapse at any moment.

He stopped short as he suddenly realized...he was in a suburb. He'd just been following the road out of town as he tried to escape—

"Drakken!"

He jumped at the sound of Shego's enraged roar. He ran without looking, just in time to avoid a green blast that flew over his head. He was in the middle of a broad street in a nice neighborhood, with no dark alleys to escape into. His mind raced as he ran for the nearest source of protection—a parked SUV.

"You think you can snub _me,_ just like that!?" Shego shouted, her voice approaching.

He cowered on the ground next to the rear tire of the vehicle, his eyes darting back and forth down the sidewalk. There was one house he saw with a gate and a fence down its side to the backyard. It appeared that the house adjacent had a chain-link fence, and there was a narrow space between the fences that he thought he just might be able to slip through.

The sound of footsteps let him know he was out of time, and with far less alacrity than he would have liked he scrambled up and again just barely missed being blasted, the glow coming so close he could feel the heat next to his cheek.

As he hurried for the fences he heard Shego shouting again, but her words were lost as he saw the porch light come on at the house he was approaching. He bit his lip and ignored it as he crammed himself into the space between the fences, having to turn sideways in order to fit.

"What's going on out here?" a male voice spoke.

Drakken couldn't see the speaker from his position, but he saw with great relief that the fury on Shego's face had turned away from him and toward the new player in the scene. He pushed himself further into the space, until...he got stuck. The fences weren't completely parallel and the space had become too narrow for him to fit.

"Mind your own business!" Shego shouted at the man.

Drakken shoved himself further between the fences, his knees bumping against the wooden planks at his front while the chain links pushed into his back and rear end. He glanced at Shego again and saw beyond her more porch lights coming on and more people exiting their homes, alerted by the shouting.

Drakken gasped. Shego had started toward him again and he shoved himself further in between the fences. The alternative was going back toward her, but if he made it through the fences he could see beyond the next row of houses what looked like a park. Maybe if he made it there, he'd have a—

"Nooo!" he cried as Shego's glow hit his shoulder. He wanted to grip to the injured limb, but he was trapped. "No! Shego, stop, please!"

The sound of a gun cocking suddenly gave him an entirely new reason to be afraid.

He looked frantically at the two houses he could see where gawkers stood on their porches. None of them seemed to be the source of the new threat.

"Back off or we're calling the police!" the male voice said.

Drakken watched as Shego turned again. And then he saw the man step into view across his front lawn, aiming a large handgun at Shego whose hands still glowed in her artificially-stimulated anger.

"You want to make this your business?" Shego said, turning and advancing on the man. She vanished behind the parked SUV and Drakken continued pushing through the fences. Just a few more feet...

A dog started barking, deep and fierce. Drakken glanced back and saw that one of the people on the porches had brought out a large canine and was holding it by the collar.

"We don't like trouble around here!" the man with the gun said.

"Hey Jason!" another male voice sounded from somewhere beyond Drakken's view. "Cool it! Put the gun away!"

"You shut up too!" Shego shouted.

Drakken pushed his way through the fences and fell to the ground. He looked back but could no longer see anything going on but the glow from the porch lights and a narrow piece of the street.

The dog's barking grew constant.

"Let's just call the police!"

"All of you shut up! Where'd he go?" Shego shouted.

Drakken scrambled to his feet but found himself unable to run, transfixed on what he was hearing from the front of the houses.

"I'm warning you!" the first man called.

In a flash Drakken saw the dog run across the street, barking all the while. The sound of Shego's glow firing repeatedly echoed amid the cries of a woman calling for the dog and the neighbor trying to talk down the gun-wielding man. He heard a trash can clatter to the ground and roll several feet. And then the gun went off.

Drakken gasped and took a step back toward the fences. He paused... Then he turned and ran away from the sound of the dog barking and people shouting. His chest was heaving from breathlessness and fear as he wondered what had happened...but he knew that to go back was his own doom, be it from Shego or someone else.

He slipped between the next two houses and ran toward the park.

* * *

A blinding light and a dark fog somehow mixed behind Shego's eyes. It was distracting. It _hurt_. But none of that mattered as she lay on her back in the street, struggling to hold off a pit bull with her hands and her legs. She finally managed to kick the dog away from her and fired a long, continuous blast of her glow.

The dog ran away yelping as she stumbled from the strange mix of light and dark. Her chest throbbed as indefinable waves of emotion washed over her. And then...it all started to fade.

She closed her eyes and caught her breath as something at the back of her neck sizzled. With a grimace, she reached beneath her hair and with a jolt of fear felt a half-dollar sized lump. She picked at it and it fell from her skin into her palm, and when she brought it forward to look at it she saw it was a small piece of technology.

The dog yelping and a woman's shouted accusations brought her focus back and she quickly looked around at the street. Two men stood on their front lawns arguing about twenty feet distant, one waving a handgun while the other, unperturbed, shook his finger in the air. Shego turned as the woman's voice came closer and saw the angry person approaching her in long strides. A further glance around showed other gawkers standing outside their houses, but none coming closer.

The dog barked again and ran toward her. Shego turned and ran toward the woman, startling her enough that she was able to pass, and then dashed into a gap between two houses. Once in a backyard, she vaulted the fence and kept going if only to get away from the chaos so she could stop and _think_.

Several minutes later found her leaning back against another fence in a place much quieter, the dog's barking distant and the voices too quiet to be heard. She looked down and stared at the device in her palm.

_'What...happened? Did he put me under mind control again?'_

A flash of rage surged through her at the idea that Drakken would have dared break their agreement. He was _dead_ if he had...

But it didn't make sense. She remembered everything as clearly as crystal. She had been moved to sobbing over her broken nail and the next minute found Drakken so infuriating she wanted to punch his face in. Because he hadn't been sympathetic about her nail?

The emotional roller-coaster had been worse than any mood swing she'd ever had, worse than any time she'd been drunk... And the device explained it. Somehow it had controlled her emotions. That much was clear.

What wasn't clear was...what, if anything, did Drakken have to do with it? It seemed like the sort of hair-brained purposeless thing he would invent... But then, he hadn't seemed to realize she was under any sort of control, and had resisted or ignored her in whatever mood she'd been claimed by. Which meant...someone else had done it? But what would be the motivation?

And why hadn't Drakken tried to stop her when she was acting out of character?

Of all that had gone on, having spent the better part of the day and evening with her heart all a-flutter as she thrilled in just _being_ with him... And imagining all the ways she wanted to be closer to him...

Shego felt sick to her stomach. Why...why had the strange device done _that_ to her?

And why now that she was free of it did she still want to be near him?

She had to find out what had happened. But first she had to find Drakken. The last she'd seen him he was stuck in between two fences back where the dog had attacked her. But she wasn't about to go back there. After that wildly-aimed gunshot in the suburban area, there was bound to be police activity all night.

She simply decided on going back to the city, to where they had parked the hover-car. Wherever Drakken had gone, assuming he wasn't injured or dead he would eventually go back. The hover-car was their only way home.

She decided on a scenic route, going further into the suburb and taking various side streets so as to avoid the police she knew would be coming. About half an hour later she came upon a street that opened up, and her brow rose as she realized she had arrived at a familiar park. It was the park where she had dragged Drakken for his 'break' from working on the...whatever, when in fact she was indulging in her various romantic fantasies.

She shuddered and hugged herself as she walked the familiar path and remembered everything again. Feeding the ducks in the pond, stealing candy from a baby to show him she was no-less evil...and then the photo-booth...

She paused and stared as the small structure came into sight. She had pounced on Drakken and kissed him. He had scrambled away and out of the booth in seconds, but...it had still happened.

She felt even more sick. She didn't...she didn't regret it. It had almost been freeing. And that didn't make sense. She had _zero_ interest in Drakken like that...

_'Ugh, ick!'_

And yet, as she stood there, the predominant thought in her mind was...why hadn't he wanted her? And disappointment that he hadn't.

A movement on the periphery broke her thoughts, and she saw a familiar silhouette pacing back and forth beneath some trees—the trees where they had had a picnic lunch. She started toward him.

* * *

Drakken muttered to himself as he wore a rut into the manicured grass, unsure what to do. He thought he had been afraid before, with Shego chasing him... But now, not knowing what had happened to her, he found himself even deeper in distress.

What if she had been injured? Or...or killed?

But if he went back, there was still that man with the gun. And the dog. And probably police.

The situation was impossible.

The soft sound of footsteps in the grass caused him to whirl around, and he gasped in reflexive alarm as Shego stood only ten feet distant. He stepped back—and tripped over a tree root and fell hard on his back.

"Ohhh..." he whined in pain as he looked up at the branches. And then Shego came into view, looming over him. "Shego!" he cried, pushing himself backward over the ground. Her face was set like stone, unreadable. "You...you..."

Shego stopped walking and held out something small between her fingers at arm's length. Drakken slowly stood and peered at the what she held. Even though he'd never seen it before, relief flooded him as he understood.

"Ohhh!" he sighed as he sagged against a tree trunk. "You...you're... Are you all right now?" he asked nervously.

Shego blinked at him, her expression unchanged.

"What's going on, Dr. D.?" she asked. His brow rose at the obvious tremor in her voice. "Did you...put this thing on me?"

He waved his hands wildly in defense. "No! It...it must have happened back in Bortel's lab," he said, having already reasoned that out for himself.

Her eyes darkened, but whatever was on her tongue remained there as she stared at him. When she did speak, her voice was low and measured in a way he had never heard before. It was nearly as frightening as her rage.

"Why didn't you try to get it off me?" she asked with her teeth bared.

He blinked at her as the deeper meaning of the question sank in. It was true... Why hadn't he? Her behavior had been bizarre for almost twenty-four hours. And he'd just...ignored it as much as possible. It hadn't actually occurred to him that something might be influencing her.

"Nnh... I was trying to work on the electron-magneto accelerator. And you kept getting in the way and distracting me! It wasn't...that big a deal," he said, his voice falling into a mutter at the last.

Shego's hands ignited. Drakken pressed himself against the tree trunk and sank to the ground as Shego advanced, her expression furious.

"You didn't think me crying one minute and then attacking you the next was worth being concerned about!?" she roared.

Drakken glanced away, but his brow was furrowed when he looked back to make his defense. "Look, I...I never can tell with you. Sometimes you're helpful, and other times you...you act like you did back in Bortel's lab."

He wanted to look at her face, to see if what he was saying made any impact. But his gaze was fixed on her brightly burning hands and preparing to dodge should an attack come again as his heart pounded in fear.

He did glance up when he realized Shego wasn't speaking, but the brief moment of eye contact with the enraged woman only made her anger burn brighter. When she spoke again she sounded very near an explosion.

"You thought me dragging you out here for some sort of date was just me being...what!?" she asked as she leaned forward with menace.

Drakken slowly shook his head, still staring at her hands and readying himself. "Nnh... You were acting so loony... I just wanted to get away from you so I could finish the EMA!"

He knew it was the wrong answer, but he only gave it because he didn't know what the right answer was. Shego advanced on him with a growl, but instead of running like he'd planned he only curled in on himself and tried to become invisible next to the base of the tree. He peered at her hands through his fingers as his heart pounded. She lifted her burning hands.

"I was just scared!" he blurted out. "I hoped...eh-heh...that you would just... S-snap out of it."

"And what if I _hadn_ 't snapped out of it?" she shouted angrily. The tiny device was suddenly tossed at his feet and Drakken stared at it where it lie in the grass. "What if that _thing_ was still on me right now?"

Drakken peered at her hands again. "I-I-I... Probably...would have kept asking you what was wrong, and..." he swallowed anxiously, "then maybe sent you on vacation to cool off from...whatever was bothering you."

"You really thought that any of this could be normal!?"

He swallowed again. No, none of it had been normal... But he had just wanted to finish the EMA. It was so easy, so simple a project with so much potential, he'd just _had_ to finish it! Of course, it ended up as every plan did when Kim Possible got involved...

"No. I was just hoping...it would all go away."

Shego's answer was silence, and Drakken's chest tightened as he wondered if it was good or bad. Then her glow went out, and she walked several paces away to lean against a different tree trunk. When he took his hands away from his face to look at her, she was hugging herself and looking...troubled. A very un-Shego-like look. But then, much of what she had done that day had been un-Shego-like.

He cautiously started to untwist from the tight ball he'd put himself into, noting how all of muscles stung from the effort. She'd put him through a lot that day, and he was going to need a day off to recover... Or more.

"So...you're...okay now?" he asked carefully. She didn't respond for several seconds. And then...

"I just spent the day with my brain being scrambled and my emotions put through a blender. What do **you** think!?" she said, the sarcasm dripping from her hoarse throat.

Drakken rose to his knees to stand, and then paused. The tiny device on the ground had caught his eye. Waiting until he was sure Shego wasn't watching, he grabbed the piece of infernal machinery and slipped it into his pocket.

After getting to his feet and stretching painfully he took a few halting steps toward her. "Um... Do you... Do you need...um..."

"You know, just...whatever," she spat, turning her back to him and leaning against her side on the tree.

He stayed back several paces, fidgeting nervously as she stood as taut as a coiled spring, her limbs occasionally shaking from the tension.

Drakken glanced around the quiet, darkened park. She wasn't shooting at him anymore...and he wanted to keep it that way. In fact, he wanted to put the whole disaster of a day behind them.

"Do you...want to go back to the lair?" he said after nearly a minute of silence.

"Leave me alone! Jerk..."

He didn't move but to fidget and stare at her for any sign of calming. He _could_ just leave...he supposed...if that's what she wanted...

She looked at him over her shoulder.

"What do you want!" she snapped.

"I...just..." he stammered. "It's a long walk back to the hover-car. And police are probably looking for us—"

"Ugh!" she said, throwing up her hands as she turned on her heel. He jumped back as she moved past him and started toward the path. When he didn't follow, she paused and looked back. "Are you coming? This monster headache isn't going to get any better standing out here."

He scurried toward her, but didn't stand quite so close as he usually did as he studied her scowling face. He supposed...it was finally over. That menacing device in his pocket had been responsible for everything... And when they got back to the lair, everything could go back to normal.

"Drakken," Shego said, stopping suddenly. He stumbled back in shock, but she didn't appear about to blast him. "You need to...to get your priorities straight."

He blinked. "...What? I-I don't—"

"You don't tinker with your stupid devices when something's obviously wrong with me. People come first. If you ever see anything like this happening again—"

"Got it!" he nodded repeatedly as he saw her anger returning. "No...no getting to pretend it's all just a bad dream. Face your problems head-on."

Something unreadable came into Shego's eyes, but she only turned and continued back toward the path. Drakken sighed in relief. He hoped that would be the last of it. He hoped he could get the whirlwind of the day out of his head, from her irrational tears to her hunting him like a wild animal, to her—he swallowed anxiously—crawling across a table toward him with lust-filled eyes.

He shuddered.

 _'Shego was right...'_ he mused. When she had started acting attracted to him, he definitely should have known it was more than just random-crazy. Because that was something that only ever arose in his very wildest dreams; thoughts he never allowed a conscious presence.

 _'Maybe that device amplifies real... No!'_ He wasn't going there. He put the speculations back into his wildest dreams, where they belonged, and hoped they would never creep into his mind again. Thinking along those lines was asking for more trouble than the day had already wrought.

Perhaps his priorities weren't quite in order, if he'd thought it was possible that anything about Shego's behavior—especially the sudden crush—had been normal. She would never...ever feel that way for him. And the fact that her behavior hadn't sent alarms ringing in head was a problem.

World domination had always been his top priority, far-surpassing anything else. And it would remain of highest importance; nothing could shake that goal. But maybe...Shego needed to be nearer the top of the list. Then he could avoid situations like they had gone through that day, in the future.

* * *

Shego couldn't look at Drakken as they stalked briskly back toward town and the hover-car's secret location. His words were echoing in her mind.

 _"No getting to pretend it's all a bad dream. Face your problems head-on,"_ he had said.

And that answered the question she hadn't known she'd been asking. He saw her artificially-motivated affections as a bad dream. As a _problem_...

Her headache pounded harder, the pain compounded by the churning in her stomach and the tightening of her chest. Why did she care that he wasn't interested in her that way? She wasn't interested in him. Never had been, never would be. The very idea of _her_ and the questionably-evil cartoonish villain, together...was laughable. The idea of him with _anyone_ was laughable, least of all with someone like her.

...So why was it all she could think about?

She grit her teeth and quickened her stride, Drakken hurrying to catch up a moment later...though he stood a good five feet away and a step behind her even after he had. He was still unsure of her.

She was unsure of herself.

She sighed silently through her nose as she hugged herself tightly. Getting back to the lair was the right idea. Back to the lair, then into a hot shower, and into bed... Where she could do as he had wisely said, and write the entire day off as one long and very, very bad dream.


End file.
